Kobe!

This is Kobe, Japan.

Monday, November 22, 2010

21 Nov 2010 Japan

Week 21

Mission Log

On Monday, in my English class, I taught them all about the system of measurement that we use in the United States. I taught them about pound, inches, feet, gallons, etc. (I forgot to teach about the Fahrenheit and Celsius difference). Everyone thought that our system of measurement was totally ridiculous. They kept saying "It`s so hard!" As we were going through it, I was kind of agreeing with them. It was seeming pretty absurd to me, and I`ve used it my whole life. Then, the next day, my companion and I made cookies to give to someone. He had never made cookies before in his life. He bought a package of flour with a recipe on it though. We had to buy basically all of the ingredients though. Japanese people just never use flour, sugar, baking powder and that kind of stuff. When we started making it, I realized how ridiculous their measurements are. All of them were weights. We had to weigh every ingredient on a scale. My companion said that`s normal, and everyone has a scale in their kitchen. It was so annoying. The recipe said "Egg - 20g". I said to him, "Let`s just put one egg in," but he was sure that we needed to weight the egg. Recipes here use grams, liters, milliliters, and cc. Our recipes with cups teaspoons and tablespoons are way easier. It`s wishing minute right now. I also dropped an egg on the ground and looked like a complete idiot. The cookies turned out weird. It was a strange recipe. Maybe I`ll buy some chocolate chips at COSTCO and make cookies with the recipe on there.

Yesterday was the primary program in church. (For any readers that my not be familiar with the church, primary is the children that are 3or 4 to 11 years old.) There were only three children in the primary here. It was so tiny, but it was still totally adorable. They sang the same songs that the primary back at home sings. Each child had a lot of speaking parts though. It was the whole sacrament meeting with only three kids. One kid was so small, he had to climb onto a step so he was tall enough to speak at the podium. And, he spoke a bunch of times. He had to climb up every time. It was cute. Their podiums are really short too. When I spoke last week, I felt like a giant.

Yesterday, when we went into the city, there were Christmas decorations everywhere. It was insane. They all came up really suddenly on the same day. And, there were a ton of them. It`s evident that Christmas is very big here. The area around the main train station was decked out with lights and such. People don`t know what the star means, but the decorations always have a big star in them. People don`t even know what Christmas really is.

That is everything that happened in this week. Next Monday I will write all of the things that happen next week. Until then, you`ll be left in a cloud of mystery about what I`m up to. Goodbye for now.